Central Okinawan, or simply the Okinawan language (沖縄口/ウチナーグチUchinaaguchi[ʔut͡ɕinaːɡut͡ɕi]), is a Northern Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kumejima, Tonaki, Aguni, and a number of smaller peripheral islands.[4] Central Okinawan distinguishes itself from the speech of Northern Okinawa, which is classified independently as the Kunigami language. Both languages have been designated as endangered by the UNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger since its launch in February 2009.[5]

Though Okinawan encompasses a number of local dialects,[6] the Shuri-Naha variant is generally recognized as the de facto standard,[7] as it had been used as the official language of the Ryūkyū Kingdom[8] since the reign of King Shō Shin (1477–1526). Moreover, as the former capital of Shuri was built around the royal palace, the language used by the royal court became the regional and literary standard,[8][7] which thus flourished in songs and poems written during that era.

Within Japan, Okinawan is not seen as a language unto itself but is referred to as the Okinawan dialect (沖縄方言,Okinawa hōgen?) or more specifically the Central and Southern Okinawan dialects (沖縄中南部諸方言,Okinawa Chūnanbu Sho hōgen?).

Okinawan is undergoing language shift as it changes to Japanese. Language use in Okinawa today is far from stable. Okinawan is assimilating to standard Japanese because of the standardized education system, the expanding media, and expanding contact with mainlanders. The process is similar to de-creolization, which is when a creole and the colonizers language are constantly in contact and the creole slowly shifts to be more like the colonizers' language.[9] Okinawan is kept alive in theaters featuring a local drama called uchinaa shibai. These plays depict local customs and manners. [10]

The Okinawan language has five vowels, all of which may be long or short, though the short vowels /e/ and /o/ are considerably rare[11] as they only occur in a few native Okinawan words, such as /meɴsoːɾeː/mensooree "welcome" or /toɴɸaː/tonfaa, and typically only in heavy syllables with the pattern /CeN/ or /CoN/. The close back vowels /u/ and /uː/ are truly rounded, rather than the compressed vowels of standard Japanese. A sixth vowel /ɨ/ is sometimes posited in order to explain why sequences containing a historically raised /e/ fail to trigger palatalization as with /i/: */te/ → /tɨː/tii "hand", */ti/ → /t͡ɕiː/chii "blood". Acoustically, however, /ɨ/ is pronounced no differently from /i/, and this distinction can simply be attributed to the fact that palatalization took place prior to this vowel shift.

Vowel Lengthening

Vowels in the second and fourth syllables have the tendency to lengthen. /a/ is the most common vowel to undergo vowel lengthening. [12]

The consonant system of the Okinawan language is fairly similar to that of standard Japanese, but it does present a few differences on the phonemic and allophonic level. Namely, Okinawan retains the labialized consonants /kʷ/ and /ɡʷ/ which were lost in Late Middle Japanese, possesses a glottal stop /ʔ/, features a voiceless bilabial fricative /ɸ/ distinct from the aspirate /h/, and has two distinctive affricates which arose from a number of different sound processes. Additionally, Okinawan lacks the major allophones [t͡s] and [d͡z] found in Japanese, having historically fronted the vowel /u/ to /i/ after the alveolars /t d s z/, consequently merging [t͡su]tsu into [t͡ɕi]chi, [su]su into [ɕi]shi, and both [d͡zu] and [zu] into [d͡ʑi]. It also lacks /z/ as a distinctive phoneme, having merged it into /d͡ʑ/.

Bilabial and glottal fricatives

The bilabial fricative /ɸ/ has sometimes been transcribed as the cluster /hw/, since, like Japanese, /h/ allophonically labializes into [ɸ] before the high vowel /u/, and /ɸ/ does not occur before the rounded vowel /o/. This suggests that an overlap between /ɸ/ and /h/ exists, and so the contrast in front of other vowels can be denoted through labialization. However, this analysis fails to take account of the fact that Okinawan has not fully undergone the diachronic change */p/ → /ɸ/ → */h/ as in Japanese, and that the suggested clusterization and labialization into */hw/ is unmotivated.[13] Consequently, the existence of /ɸ/ must be regarded as independent of /h/, even though the two overlap. Barring a few words that resulted from the former change, the aspirate /h/ also arose from the odd lenition of /k/ and /s/, as well as words loaned from other dialects. Before the glide /j/ and the high vowel /i/, it is pronounced closer to [ç], as in Japanese.

Palatalization

The plosive consonants /t/ and /k/ historically palatalized and affricated into /t͡ɕ/ before and occasionally following the glide /j/ and the high vowel /i/: */kiri/ → /t͡ɕiɾi/chiri "fog", and */k(i)jora/ → /t͡ɕuɾa/chura- "beautiful". This change preceded vowel raising, so that instances where /i/ arose from */e/ did not trigger palatalization: */ke/ → /kiː/kii "hair". Their voiced counterparts /d/ and /ɡ/ underwent the same effect, becoming /d͡ʑ/ under such conditions: */unaɡi/ → /ʔɴnad͡ʑi/qnnaji "eel", and */nokoɡiri/ → /nukud͡ʑiɾi/nukujiri "saw"; but */kaɡeɴ/ → /kaɡiɴ/kagin "seasoning".

Both /t/ and /d/ may or may not also allophonically affricate before the mid vowel /e/, though this pronunciation is increasingly rare. Similarly, the fricative consonant /s/ palatalizes into [ɕ] before the glide /j/ and the vowel /i/, including when /i/ historically derives from /e/: */sekai/ → [ɕikeː]shikee "world". It may also palatalize before the vowel /e/, especially so in the context of topicalization: [duɕi]dushi → [duɕeː]dusee or dushee "(topic) friend".

The voiced plosive /d/ and the flap /ɾ/ tend to merge, with the first becoming a flap in word-medial position, and the second sometimes becoming a plosive in word-initial position. For example, /ɾuː/ruu "dragon" may be strengthened into /duː/duu, and /hasidu/hashidu "door" conversely flaps into /hasiɾu/hashiru. The two sounds do, however, still remain distinct in a number of words and verbal constructions.

Glottal stop

Okinawan also features a distinctive glottal stop /ʔ/ that historically arose from a process of glottalization of word-initial vowels.[14] Hence, all vowels in Okinawan are predictably glottalized at the beginning of words (*/ame/ → /ʔami/ami "rain"), save for a few exceptions. High vowel loss or assimilation following this process created a contrast with glottalized approximants and nasal consonants.[14] Compare */uwa/ → /ʔwa/qwa "pig" to /wa/wa "I", or */ine/ → /ʔɴni/qnni "rice plant" to */mune/ → /ɴni/nni "chest".[15]

Moraic nasal

The moraic nasal /N/ has been posited in most descriptions of Okinawan phonology. Like Japanese, /N/ (transcribed using the small capital /ɴ/) occupies a full mora and its precise place of articulation will vary depending on the following consonant. Before other labial consonants, it will be pronounced closer to a syllabicbilabial nasal[m̩], as in /ʔɴma/[ʔm̩ma]qmma "horse". Before velar and labiovelar consonants, it will be pronounced as a syllabic velar nasal[ŋ̍], as in /biɴɡata/[biŋ̍ɡata]bingata, a method of dying clothes. And before alveolar and alveolo-palatal consonants, it becomes a syllabic alveolar nasal/n̩/, as in /kaɴda/[kan̩da]kanda "vine". Elsewhere, its exact realization remains unspecified, and it may vary depending on the first sound of the next word or morpheme. In isolation and at the end of utterances, it is realized as a velar nasal [ŋ̍].

The Okinawan language was historically written using an admixture of kanji and hiragana. The hiragana syllabary is believed to have first been introduced from mainland Japan to the Ryukyu Kingdom some time during the reign of king Shunten in the early thirteenth century.[17][18] It is likely that Okinawans were already in contact with Chinese characters due to extensive trade between the Ryukyu Kingdom and China, Japan and Korea. However, hiragana gained more widespread acceptance throughout the Ryukyu Islands, and most documents and letters were uniquely transcribed using this script. The Omoro Saushi (おもろさうし), a sixteenth-century compilation of songs and poetry,[19] and a few preserved writs of appointments dating from the same century were written solely in Hiragana.[20]Kanji were gradually adopted due to the growing influence of mainland Japan and to the linguistic affinity between the Okinawan and Japanese languages.[21] However, it was mainly limited to affairs of high importance and to documents sent towards the mainland. The oldest inscription of Okinawan exemplifying its use along with Hiragana can be found on a stone stele at the Tamaudun mausoleum, dating back to 1501.[22][23]

After the invasion of Okinawa by the Satsuma clan in 1609, Okinawan ceased to be used in official affairs.[17] It was replaced by standard Japanese writing and a form of Classical Chinese writing known as kanbun.[17] Despite this change, Okinawan still continued to prosper in local literature up until the nineteenth century. Following the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government abolished the domain system and formally annexed the Ryukyu Islands to Japan as the Okinawa Prefecture in 1879.[24] To promote national unity, the government then introduced standard education and opened Japanese-language schools based on the Tokyo dialect.[24] Students were discouraged and chastised for speaking or even writing in the local "dialect", notably through the use of "dialect cards" (方言札). As a result, Okinawan gradually ceased to be written entirely until the American takeover in 1945.

Since then, Japanese and American scholars have variously transcribed the regional language using a number of ad hoc romanization schemes or the katakana syllabary to demarcate its foreign nature with standard Japanese. Proponents of Okinawan tend to be more traditionalist and continue to write the language using hiragana with kanji. In any case, no standard or consensus concerning spelling issues has ever been formalized, so discrepancies between modern literary works are common.

Okinawan follows a Topic>Object>Verb word order and makes large use of particles as in Japanese. Okinawan dialects retain a number of grammatical features of classical Japanese, such as a distinction between the terminal form (終止形) and the attributive form (連体形), the genitive function of がga (lost in the Shuri dialect), the nominative function of ぬnu (Japanese: のno), as well as honorific/plain distribution of ga and nu in nominative use.

書くkakuto write

Classical

Shuri

Irrealis

未然形

書か

kaka-

kaka-

Continuative

連用形

書き

kaki-

kachi-

Terminal

終止形

書く

kaku

kachun

Attributive

連体形

書く

kaku

kachuru

Realis

已然形

書け

kake-

kaki-

Imperative

命令形

書け

kake

kaki

One etymology given for the -un and -uru endings is the continuative form suffixed with uri (Classical Japanese: 居りwori, to be; to exist): -un developed from the terminal form uri; -uru developed from the attributive form uru, i.e.:

kachuru derives from kachi-uru;

kachun derives from kachi-uri; and

yumun (Japanese: 読むyomu, to read) derives from yumi + uri.

A similar etymology is given for the terminal -san and attributive -saru endings for adjectives: the stem suffixed with さsa (nominalises adjectives, i.e. high → height, hot → heat), suffixed with ari (Classical Japanese: 有りari, to exist; to have), i.e.:

The Okinawan topic particle is ya (や), which corresponds with Japanese wa (は). However, apart from classical literature, ya assimilates into the preceding word in different ways; it remains separate only after long vowels. Likewise, the particle n (ん; "also", "even", "too"), corresponding to Japanese mo (も), will result in the addition of a vowel between it and a preceding moraic nasal n; if the word previously ended in a vowel in an earlier form of the language, it is likely to use that vowel.

The Okinawan subject particle distinguishes between ga (が) nu (ぬ, equivalent to Japanese の no), in honorific/plain distribution. This contrasts with Japanese, where the use of no as a subject particle is restricted to attributive clauses in the form "noun + の + attributive verb + noun".

Modern Okinawan does not use a direct-object marker, as in casual Japanese speech. However, classical literature uses the particle yu (ゆ, written as yo よ prior to the vowel shift), cognate to Japanese を wo, where appropriate.

For other nouns, the particle fuses with short vowels. a → aa, i → ee, u → oo, e → ee, o → oo, n → noo.
Pronoun 我ん(wan; I) becomes topicalized as 我んねー(wan'ne—) instead of 我んのー(wan'no—) or 我んや(wan'ya), although the latter does appear in some musical or literary works.

Indicates the location where an action pertaining to an animate subject takes place. をぅとーてぃ wutooti is the progressive form of をぅてぃ wuti, and both derive from the participle form of the verb をぅん wun "to be, to exist".